Friday, February 25, 2011

After a rough 48 hours of delays, cancelled flights, and more delays, I finally made it to my island in the sun!I have changed quite a bit in this last year since leaving the island. I left to pursue personal growth in my prairie hometown, to study Creative Communications, working hard to get good grades and become a better writer. All with the hopes of someday achieving success: being happy in a creative and dynamic career.

For those of you unfamiliar with GCM, well, I'll just say that for most of the great people that inhabit the island, Grand Cayman is a place focused on the pursuit of pleasure, not personal growth.

In this year I have been away I have changed drastically whereas the island has not. Sure a few of the restaurants are called by a new name, and there are some new face who have run away from home to la-la-land and pursue the beach life. But all in all, it's the same.

I am able to see it clearly now... this is not the place for me. I want more than this... Yes, the boat parties, sunset sails, island tours, beach walks and slushy cocktails with friends are great, but it is not the life for me.

Time to set off and pursue pleasure for my last 48 hours on-island, before I return home, off to bigger things.

Bye Bye Cayman. I don't think I'll be back. For the great friends I have that remain on-island... let's live it up!

This little treat was created by my Cayman sister, Michelle. Cheers!

Shell-Berry

-2oz Stoli Vodka

-4 oz Limeade juice

-3 frozen strawberries

-mix all ingredients in a plastic cup with ice. Enjoy with great friends while watching the sun set over the Caribbean Sea.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Years ago I made a decision to no longer fall deeply or passionately in love with anyone, leaving myself open to my one and only ever true love: Travel. I'd figured this would keep me safe from heart break.

I love everything about traveling: people watching in the airport cafés; killing time browsing in book stores; the random conversations with characters whose name you never catch; the thump of the customs stamp permanently imprinting the country in my passport; waking up in a foreign land, with endless possibilities outside your door.

AhhH! *Swoon*

After a five-year courtshipsgalavanting around the world, exploring fifteen countries across four continents, our relationship had to be put on hold while I returned home to study. I thought he'd understand.

In the months leading up to my spring break Caribbean getaway, I would fantasize of our getting back together. I bought magazines and novels for the trip. I wondered what movies the in-flght entertainment system would have waiting for me. I was excited to use the self-serve kiosks, to go through security, to spark up a conversation with a stranger sitting next to me at the airport bar. I was looking forward to the trip just as much as I looked forward to the tropical destination.

Turns out I was wrong and that even Travel can break your heart.

I had a bad feeling right form the moment I got to the airport to catch my 6:30 flight to Toronto, just waiting for something to go wrong, but I got through check-in in a breeze, even avoiding charges for my surplus or over-weight bags. I wasn't randomly selected in security for a laptop-swab-test (something that I have never understood anyway) or a pat-down, all was going a bit-too-smoothy... I had one of those feelings that it was too good to be true, and to my chagin, I was right.

It took six hours from our initial departure time for the flight to eventually be canceled due to the snowy weather conditions. Two hours spent on the plane waiting on the tarmak, the rest waiting in a desolate airport lobby with not a single store open.

I would miss my connection to my tropical paradise, and airline staff informed me there were no available seats for five days. I felt my heart break into tiny little pieces upon realizing that the trip I had been working and saving for the last 5 months may not get to happen. My heart sunk, and I blamed myself for allowing myself to love something so deeply in the first place. All because of a blizzard.

Have a ever mentioned how much I hate winter??

I have learnt that in this life who you know matters just as much as what you know, and well, a boy I know with super-elite aeroplan status made a call for me, and got me my own little airline assistant working through the night to find me a flight to my island paradise. I may be getting there a day late and a buck short, but, my I will get to my island in the sun. And as far as my #1 love, I'm going to give him a second shot.

Have a great reading week to my fellow CreCommers!!! Want to live through my Caribbean adventures, mix one of these bad boys up! The obstacles I've faced are going to make taste so much better when I finally get there!!

Cayman Lemonade

1 oz Vodka1 oz Triple Sec1 oz peach schnappsCranberry juiceClub soda

Mix the vodka, triple sec and peach schnapps in a shaker and pour over ice. Add a squeeze of lime and a splash each of cranberry juice and soda. Stir and enjoy. Yah Mon!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

One of the great things about being a bartender at hip and cool bars is having the opportunity to meet some really cool and inspiring people.

Throughout my bartending carreer, I have: schmoozed famous actors, gotten great tips from former teenage-boy-band idols; served cosmopolitans to the writer that started the Sex and the City revolution; taken shots with a Cocktail King and world famous mixologist; and drink Grey Goose on ice on a yacht in Caribbean while having a chat with the French maitre-de-chai who came up with the recipe.

Being in the presence of success simply inspires me. I ask myself (and if I have the chance, I ask them,) how did this person get to this position?

Being inspired doesn't only happen while rubbing elbows with big names. This week, as a lowly starving student, inspiration found me.

Julie Wilson was our weekly guest speaker, she is creator of Seen Reading, a blog she writes about people she sees reading on public transit. With a brief description of the person, the book they were reading, and the approximate page/passage of the book they were reading when "seen" Wilson creates a micro-fiction story of that person. She has done this over 700 times and hopes that Seen Reading inspires people to buy books.

It worked, I was at Chapters that very night spending some time with my long lost companion, the book.

Seen Reading is going to be published into a book. Wilson accredits this to her self-promotion through social media. What resonated with me was her 9:1 rule about new media. For every 1 self-promoting tweet/facebook status, you have to put out 9 engaging and entertaining ones.

Since CreComm has taken over, I hadn't taken the time to snuggle up with a good book. Thank you Julie.

Inspired -

A great cocktail to enjoy with your favorite book

1 oz bailey

1/2 oz kaluah

1/2 oz frangelico

coffee.

Mix all ingredients together in your favorite coffee mug. Get cozy. Enjoy some well-deserved "me time"

Friday, February 4, 2011

Oh what a gorgeous day: handed in two assignments, it's sunny & 5 degrees above in February (for all the non-Peggers out there, that is pretty incredible)!!! It is impossible to not crack a smile. Also pretty hard not to want a delicious happy hour treat...

When you were a kid, today is the kind of day that would make you want some kool-aid... Here's the grown-up version. Cheers!

Koolaid for Grownups (of versions thereof)

1oz Amaretto

1 oz Melon liqueur

.5 oz Grenadine

Pineapple Juice

1/2 of a lime

-pour liqueurs and grenadine into a shaker glass full of ice. Top with the lime juice and stir well. Enjoy!